The Tribal Unconscious
The snows are deep and the sun is shining on the tree tops. What a gorgeous morning. It is Family Day here in Ontario. I forgot to take the day off. So, I will be working and coming to this page as is my Monday morning praxis.
Family Day. Family. This sits pretty high up on my mountain of values. I love my family. My large and loud and outrageous family. We are so lucky to have survived the storms that have battered the best of us, but strengthened most of us. That we are so diverse and so committed to each other is a gift beyond measure. That being said, some of us are estranged from each other. I guess no group or tribe or family can exist without the fissures that make us human, all too human. Even in the distance between some of us, I still love. I still pray. I still long for the day when the heat of our differences fades into the soft embers of a late season fire in the hearth.
I looked at a picture of a long-ago family reunion picnic at my aunt’s and uncle’s home. So many familiar faces, by familiar, I mean to each other. The bent of the brows and the width of so many noses bear the signatures of our fore-bearers. I look at that picture today and see the passage of time. The kids are grown to adult and too many of us are missing. Gone by way of divorces and deaths. But, in that picture, something of what defines family endures. At least for me. Is it the smiles? The hugs? The willingness to travel toward one another to share an afternoon? Whatever it is, it is as mysterious as it is precious.
As precious as family is, it is also fragile. The ways in which we individuate can estrange us from one another. There are seasons. Some where the love blooms and some when the seeds lay fallow. Nevertheless, the garden is more beautiful because of its varied colours and fragrances. This I hold to be true, even when the blight of misunderstandings, or disagreements, or hurts wither the blooms. My garden gate remains open, and my heart extends itself beyond the gate.
Some say that there is such a thing as chosen family. This may well be true. Our neighbours and friends do offer some of what the soul yearns for and experiences in family. A teacher of mine called out the Tribal Unconscious. She posited that although we do not live in tribes anymore, the unconscious has not received the memo. Jung called this kinship libido. Surely, we have individual souls, but, the tribal soul has us. We are dreamed toward each other, we entrain toward each other, we are completed in the gatherings that bring us out of our silos and into the harvest of togetherness.
On this beautiful February day, a day decreed to celebrate Family, may we all find the people that complete us. The lilt of the voice that is music to the ancestral proteins sleeping in our DNA. The fragrance of familiarity that sweetens the bitterness of the world at large. The sight of the faces that mirror our own. The taste of a kiss. The feel of a warm lingering embrace. The nourishment of a shared meal.
The sign that hangs in my home, is my prayer for today. Happy Family Day!